


The Middle Way

by alaicrane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Michelle's mom, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Abuse, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Content, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-09-26 16:19:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17145053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alaicrane/pseuds/alaicrane
Summary: Neither of them knows how they managed to do it - jumping right off the deep end when they were barely friends, before.





	1. Contact

“Alright - last in line. Let’s see what you’ve got, Thompson.” 

“It’s _Flash_ , Coach. Also, no way.”

“...and why not, Eugene?” 

“Look at her!”

The “her” in question is Michelle Jones, who is sitting cross-legged beneath the chin up bar with a worn copy of “Metamorphoses” in her hands. She's been taking her time with this one because frankly, the book is _a lot_ , and deserves more than just a skim. Her debate team co-captain was no stranger to hyperbole, but apparently Priya Shah wasn't exaggerating when she raved about it. 

__“Jones?”_ _

__Michelle is less than a dozen pages from the end so it’s going to take more than the grimace their gym teacher is shooting her way to convince her to stop reading, at this point._ _

__“I’ll be done in a second,” she hums at Coach Wilson’s frown._ _

__Some of the other kids eventually pull out some snacks and playing cards. It seems they know her well: this could take a while._ _

__Three pages later, and Flash has had it._ _

“Why would you assign MJ of all people to spot me. I could bust my ass, no, break my neck and she wouldn’t do anything to stop it! It’s _her,_ so she’d probably draw some evil cartoon about my death and hand it out at my funeral!”

__“That’s ridiculous. Right, Jones?” Coach prompts her again._ _

__“The defense rests, your honor.”_ _

__Michelle allows a tiny smirk at the chuckles from her classmates and least (most) importantly, the small grin she sees growing on Peter Parker’s face from a few feet away, out of the corner of her eye._ _

__“See?! Get ready to be forwarded my chiropractor bills for the next few decades, is all I’m saying,” Flash, the biggest whiner ever admitted to Midtown threatens. “My parents are both lawyers with 30 years combined experience...”_ _

__Michelle tunes out the rest of Flash’s whining in favor of pulling the mini Sharpie from her bun to mark a couple passages she plans to re-visit._ _

_You will go most safely by the middle way_ , she highlights, _for if your pinions dip too low the waters may impede your flight; and if they soar too high the sun may scorch them. Fly midway._

__

__

____“Hmmm,” she mutters out loud._ _ _ _

____“Just, just go sit over there Jones. Damn teenagers.”_ _ _ _

____Coach Wilson wildly gestures for her to move towards the bleachers she’d already scouted a comfortable-looking place on, while he takes over her job of spotting._ _ _ _

____His turn is nearly over when Flash unleashes a retaliatory fart directly in Wilson’s face, so it’s no shock to Michelle that the class is herded out the gym and rewarded with five laps around the entire football field._ _ _ _

____She silently bookmarks her page before joining her classmates. Despite the interruption - just when she’s made it to the final chapter, no less - she can’t be mad at this punishment. It’s relatively cool for a mid-September afternoon in New York, the air smells like freshly-mown grass and the breeze feels good on her bare arms and legs. Plus, it was a Wednesday._ _ _ _

____(Not that it mattered to Michelle. It definitely doesn’t)._ _ _ _

____Most of the class doesn’t start feeling the hurt until halfway through the final lap._ _ _ _

____Sweat gathers on Michelle’s brow and she impatiently flicks a few stray curls from her forehead, wondering if she maybe overestimated her own stamina by actually jogging the first few laps instead of walking them like a few others. She gets so caught up in making it to the faded white stripe at the end of the track that she almost wouldn’t have noticed Peter at all, if not for Ned’s low groaning._ _ _ _

____Just ahead of her, Leeds and Betty are taking turns huffing about shin splints, leg cramps and possible cardiac arrests while Peter happily pushes them both along, a dumb grin on his even dumber face._ _ _ _

____“Come on guys, we’re almost there,” he laughs. “We’ve got this!”_ _ _ _

The absolute _loser._

____Normally this type of odd behavior from him...behavior that clearly didn’t match their current circumstances...wouldn’t capture Michelle’s interest for very long._ _ _ _

____Peter Parker had always been an enigma wrapped in frumpy, nerd outerwear - his presence came with a distance that was equal parts intriguing and unnerving at the same time. Over the years, trying to figure that boy out had (almost) proven to be the most useless endeavor Michelle ever could have undertaken._ _ _ _

She thinks about how his smile hasn’t budged all period, all _day_ if she’s being precise, and doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere any time soon. His gym clothes aren’t plastered to his annoyingly well-built form like everyone else’s. Those dark brown curls aren’t matted with sweat and he hasn’t stopped for any water breaks, while the rest of them are openly panting like dogs in a desert. But today is different. 

____Because for the first time, in all the time she’s known him, Michelle is certain what’s got Peter in such a great mood._ _ _ _

____Another kind of heat flushes Michelle’s already-hot face and burns through her body when she lifts her gaze from his mouth, to see that he’s already staring right back._ _ _ _

Something about the way his eyes darken when they meet with hers - as if he knew for a _fact_ her thoughts had been solely on him, that her mind had helplessly been drifting towards what they did at Flash’s end of summer party a few weeks ago and what they hadn't stopped doing every Wednesday night since - makes her go lightheaded. 

____She’s still too accustomed to observing Peter when he’s mentally miles away, Michelle realizes too late. She's used to his attention splitting far beyond whatever was going on in the world immediately around him. She’s still not used to this..._ _ _ _

____To the reality that Peter notices her noticing him, and only seems to want more._ _ _ _

____Summoning the last bit of energy she has, Michelle ups her speed so that she is even with Peter’s group, and close enough to knock him square in the shoulder. Luckily he takes the hint. They slow down to a walk until Ned and Betty outpace them both, and by some unspoken agreement both of them agree to ignore the curious looks their friends start shooting them._ _ _ _

____“That was rude, MJ,” Peter says. He discreetly brushes his fingers against her wrist, and his smile goes impossibly brighter at the contact of her traitorous pinky curling around his._ _ _ _

"You're not wrong." 

____“Do you want to, uh...am I gonna see you later?”_ _ _ _

____“I don't know, Peter. Are you?”_ _ _ _

____His mood shifts in an instant, likely from the ominous combination of her question and the subtle signs of distress Michelle knows he’s learned to read in her face._ _ _ _

____Without giving him a chance to respond, Michelle walks right off the track, past their mildly protesting teacher and through the double doors of the gym. She doesn’t stop until she’s stripped off her uniform in the empty girls’ locker room and is shielding her eyes beneath the spray of a hot shower._ _ _ _

____Far enough away from Peter Parker that she can finally catch her breath, and think._ _ _ _


	2. Normal (Pt. 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter (and it's second half) takes place before the first one, and subsequent updates may also not be in chronological order. Thank you so much for your support <3

  


“You look like a bridge troll from here,” May sighs at him from the general vicinity of their kitchen. Peter had heard her shuffling around in there for a while, but nothing was burning yet so he figured she must be busy with a task other than making dinner.

He glances over the top of the couch just as she switches off the coffeemaker, and starts dropping sugar cubes into her mug. 

“No offense, hon.”

"None taken."

He turns back around with a grin as May rolls her eyes, and tells him to order a pizza. 

Peter mutes the television as he dials. It’s some old home renovation show May loved despite never actually owning a house, and he's been marathoning it for an...indeterminate length of time. He’s not sure whether it’s the demolition process, the unforeseen complications (it always seemed to be _mold_ \- black mold in particular, the worst kind) or the dramatic “before and after” shots that’s got him him hooked, but it’s definitely something. Soon May gets sucked into it as well, curling up on the recliner with her steaming drink in hand. For a minute he waits to see if she's actually going to comment further on his current set-up, but she doesn't.

The thing is, he gets it. Peter is fully aware of how pathetic he must look. Buried in a cocoon of blankets, pillows, and an old science fair hoodie with a bowl of pretzels in his lap. 

But this has been his thing all summer break and so far, it’s worked out great. 

No school. No presentations or after-school clubs or practices, or impromptu meetings with Tony Stark to get in the way of things. 

Ned comes over every couple days with DVDS, schematics he's made for future Lego models, or more spare parts for the gaming computer they’ve been building. That project probably should’ve been done by now, but his visits had slowed ever since he and Betty Brant started hanging out more. It’s a development Peter can’t begrudge considering the happy glow his best friend was sporting lately. 

Michelle Jones stopped by once. She’d arrived with the same stack of missed homework Principal Morita mailed to May, a month after he’d jumped off the bus and webbed his way into space with Tony and Mr Strange. Peter finished every assignment within a week of his return, so declining her mumbled offer to help him catch up was a natural choice. He'd accepted the bundle from her, anyway. 

It wasn’t... _bad_ seeing her. But it definitely wasn’t good, either. Mostly because Peter had no idea how to talk to her, much less look her in the eye, for multiple reasons he still wasn’t ready to think about yet. Aside from her and Ned, May, and the odd surviving Avenger, his contact with the outside world has been scarce. 

If not for the nightly patrols - nearly _all_ night, at the rate he's been going - Peter is sure that contact would be none.

May abruptly tugs him back to the present, with a snap of her fingers.

“Hey! Isn’t your friend Eugene’s back to school party tonight?”

“I don’t know. Yeah, probably,” he says.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

“I’m not going, May.”

“But you go every year.” 

Peter ignores her slightly raised brow, too busy opening the calendar app on his phone. “Not this one, I guess,” he finally responds, after confirming that today was the final Wednesday of summer break so Flash's party was in fact, tonight. “Anyway, he’s an asshole.”

“Language!”

Peter swiftly returns the smirk edging it’s way on his aunt’s face. No one, not even May Parker could disagree that Flash Thompson was a certifiable asshole. He concluded it was one of those fixed points in the universe which would remain a constant, one of the few things he and May were still in total agreement about after...everything. 

Their impasse lasts long enough for him to relax and hope she might forget what they were arguing about, but May has never been one to give up that easily.

Her prodding over the party continues when she re-fills her coffee mug, keeps up once their pizza has been delivered and while she’s eating it (and he pretends to), and long after the leftovers have been stashed in the refrigerator. She doesn’t let the subject drop for the duration of the current episode, or the next, until Peter has no choice except to burrow deeper into his blankets and pull the hood of his sweatshirt over his face. An ounce of guilt creeps up on him when she falls quiet, but's it's not enough to change his mind.

Just when Peter thinks he’s won this silent battle of wills, May snatches the remote from him and flicks the television off. 

“Seriously? I didn’t do anything!” he argues, pushing his hood back up.

“That’s exactly the problem.” 

May doesn’t attempt to wrestle the hoodie, pillows or blankets from him, but the determination in her voice rattles Peter more than any further thievery could.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to shower, and get dressed in actual clothing, and I’m going to drive you to your asshole AcaDec teammate’s house,” she says, knocking his feet off the coffee table as she crosses the room to gather up the HDMI cables, Roku box and other miscellaneous cords into her arms. 

“You’ve got work in an hour, May.” 

“Fine! You’re going to catch a ride with Ned to the party-” 

“Family reunion in Tampa."

“Great! A nice Uber driver will drop you off so you can hang out with your other friends,” May doesn’t skip a beat, seemingly impervious to the defeated look Peter knows has settled over his face. “You’re going to have fun, and socialize and be a normal teenager tonight. And that’s it.”

“I’ve got patrol,” he quietly reminds her. 

“No. Not if I say you don't,” May whispers back, and his eyes snap to hers in a second.

For the first time since he returned from Titan, Peter sees something in May’s expression beyond relief, or gratitude or simple joy that he was alive.

She looks...lost. The same way she looked at him right after Ben died. 

Growing up, Peter had spent so much time feeling thankful for them. There wasn’t a day that went by since his parents' accident that he didn’t think of May and Ben’s sacrifices for him - they’d downsized, taken on extra shifts at each of their jobs and basically given up their entire child-free-by-choice lifestyle. Not once making him feel less than wanted and adored in the decade they’d spent raising him.

Peter would never forget that. Nothing could _ever_ make him forget it.

He swallows past the lump lodged in his throat, past every angry word he'd nearly thrown at May's threat to block him from his Spiderman duties, as he stares at the bowl in his lap.

May slowly walks over to sit beside him, then perches her glasses on top of her head. “Know what I think, hon? I think when you, and Tony and those other guys went flying up into space, something went very wrong down here on Earth. That maybe something bad happened to a lot of us,” he hears her say. 

"May-"

“You can’t tell me if I'm right. Trust me, I get how this works by now. Top secret government bullshit," she interrupts him. "Whatever happened to us regular folks down here, you guys fixed it. I'm sure none of us would want to remember it."

_No, you wouldn't, _Peter silently agrees, watching his aunt take a deep breath.__

____

__

"So, yes. I think something bad happened to us. But I _know_ something bad happened to you. I wish you'd tell me, Peter.”

He dreams of it every night.

He dreams of disintegrating to dust...feeling every cell burn up, crumble, and scatter into the wind, with a thousand thoughts racing to the singular certainty that no living person, enhanced or not, could survive what was happening to him. He dreams of the cold, and the dark, and the absence of his own heartbeat. And every time he wakes, Peter is numb with the same terror he'd felt before his own death - when he'd imagined all the lives that would be lost, because he’d failed.

Granting May's wish is a burden he is unwilling to give her. Trying to be normal, for her sake, is the least Peter can do.

“I'll be ready for that Uber in half an hour."

  


“Penis Parker! The notorious school-ditching Stark intern...has! ARRIVED!”

Flash’s voice reverberates through the megaphone in his fist, and more than a few people turn at his entrance. 

Their eyes on him aren’t unfriendly - more curious, than anything, and not without cause. Peter hadn't replied to texts, hadn't even thought about attending the Robotics club meetings Mike Murphy held throughout the summer and been nice enough to continue sending him invites for. Considering the way he’d virtually disappeared off the bus the day of their MoMA fieldtrip in late April, Peter can’t blame anyone for wondering at his sudden reappearance. Especially since no one but Ned knew the true reason he’d left in the first place. 

The thought of his best friend makes Peter’s eyes cut back to the front door, only steps away. If he wasn’t already feeling entirely out of place here, Ned’s absence is enough to make him want to crawl back into his cozy, bridge troll fort and never come out. 

Ned had _always _been better than him at this. He didn’t care much what people thought about him, or what they did or didn’t say about him when he wasn’t around to hear it. That give-no-fucks attitude had been enough to give Peter the confidence to not care either, on more than one occasion. But Ned was in Florida.__

____

____

Hopefully having a better time than Peter currently is. 

He calculates the likelihood of May catching a glimpse of him swinging around Manhattan’s skyline on the news that night, and quickly decides it’s worth the risk. He smiles and/or grimaces his way through brief hugs, back slaps and politely-refused Jello shots while edging through the packed den, with a plan to walk out the very next door he encountered. 

Peter is steps from a side entrance just off the kitchen, and freedom when he hears her. 

“Nice to see you too, Parker.” 

Michelle Jones is perched on a bar stool on the clear opposite end of the room. She's fully focused on spreading something on crackers with the back of a spoon, and between the two of them is a marble island the size of a couple competition-size pool tables. Given that, the heavy bass rumbling through the house, Flash’s screeching and the steadily moving bodies all around them, Peter knows a regular person wouldn’t have heard her muttered greeting at all. 

“Oh! Uh, hi Michelle...MJ.”

It takes a few seconds for her eyes to scan the room, and find his. 

Michelle actually looks caught off-guard - he guesses she hadn’t planned on him hearing her, either.

Peter thinks of the last real conversation they had, which happened to be the second to last time he’d seen her in person. Decathlon practice the end of sophomore year, right before all hell broke loose with Thanos and (half) the world nearly ended. "Wipe that smug grin off your face, nerd," she'd said, following the announcement he'd moved from alternate status and earned his place back on the main team. "You've still got a long ways to go before I'm convinced this isn't a mistake." 

It felt like more than just a few months ago to him and maybe Michelle feels the same, based on the way she simply stares back at him, with no urgency whatsoever. Tonight her wild curls are loosely spilling over her shoulders, there's no jacket covering up the simple black tank dress she's wearing, and of course, that unusually open expression is new. Otherwise, she looks the same. 

Peter blinks, not sure what else to say to her as she just studies him studying her. Apparently never knowing what she was thinking was another constant, another fixed point which would never change.

Thankfully, she doesn’t leave it to him to pick up the conversation. “It’s a widely known fact that rich people hide their best food during parties,” Michelle murmurs with no preamble, breaking their eye contact to tilt her head towards a wooden door next to the refrigerator. 

“Come forage with me, loser.”

She slides off her chair to meet him at the door, which swings inward. 

They raid the loaded shelves in silence at first. The pantry is huge - there’s stuff packed on every shelf. It’s organized and labeled in a way that reminds Peter of the fancy grocery stores he and May would visit around the holidays, when she got a bonus from work and wanted to splurge on some things they wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise. 

Peter’s eyes widen at the price tag on a tin of cookies he’d just picked up.

“That, that can’t be right,” he says, handing it to Michelle so she can see for herself.

“Capitalism rarely ever is." Michelle hums as she drops the whole thing in her recyclable bag, then points at a jar of imported figs. 

“Check the tag on that one, nerd.” 

“What? Holy shit!” 

His laughter seems to surprise them both - when he glances towards Michelle, the smile on her face isn’t sarcastic at all.

She hands him a second bag, and they gather the rest of their selections without comment.

It's Peter's idea to sneak out of the kitchen, up the back staircase and into one of the bedrooms which lead to the second floor balcony. It's a guest room, he thinks, based on the lack of any personal items or framed pictures laying around. The attached balcony is small, with only one lounger neither he nor Michelle try to claim, but it's quiet and the view overlooks the entire backyard.

From up here, Peter can see a bunch of their classmates milling around the perimeter of the pool, with plastic cups and/or glass bottles in hand. Some of them are actually in the water, floating on and jumping off blow up furniture, their faces backlit by the lights strung around the lower deck. Their shrieks and splashing drown out the sound of him and Michelle munching through all their stolen snacks. 

Michelle has abandoned hers for the banana bread Peter had found shoved in the back corner of the pantry, but he doesn’t mind sharing. Raiding for better refreshments than the ones Flash bothered to put out had been her idea. She also figured out it tasted even better paired with something else - she goes with Nutella, while Peter spreads his own slice with crunchy peanut butter. 

“What, you don’t like it?” he asks at her slight frown.

“Name one thing to like about lumpy, unfinished peanut butter, Peter. I’ll wait.”

“Well, you...literally just ate two spoonfuls.”

“You’re keeping count? Why do you care?”

Peter narrows his eyes. “Do I _really _care, loser? Do I?”__

____

____

Michelle’s mouth falls open in shock. A spark of triumph flickers in Peter's chest as her lips curve into a bright smile that soon takes over her face. "I can't believe you're being this lame, MJ," he flatly continues, fighting his own smile as she unsuccessfully tries to smother her giggles. "Hanging out with my lame, nerdy self and eating up all this lame peanut butter. Wow.”

Like this, with the luminescent reflection of the pool on her, and laughing uncontrollably at her own expense, Michelle doesn’t seem as unknowable as she always had before. He would never admit it to May but suddenly Peter was glad she’d forced him to come here, tonight.

“Fuck off,” she finally manages to say.

  


Michelle had been sprawled on the sole lounge chair, having claimed it not long after they found their way on the balcony, but soon she's tugging on the hem of her dress and carefully lowering herself to sit beside him on the ground. Peter feels himself blush for no reason at all, as she wraps her arms around her knees. 

“I was just kidding, by the way. I do care...about you as a person, I mean. As a friend. Thanks for bringing me all that homework, MJ,” he adds in a rush.

“No problem. We can’t afford your idiocy dragging us down in Decathlon again this year.”

Her words are blunt as usual, but Peter doesn’t miss the hint of a smile lingering on her lips as she takes a long swallow from her water bottle. Their fingers brush for a half a second when she passes it over. He takes a long sip, then another before passing it back. 

Peter rests his head on the metal balcony rail they're sitting against, blinking up towards the night sky. Flash’s suburb is still too close to the city to allow for any clear view of the stars, and the perspective really isn't much different from that of his own apartment. Something compels him to look regardless, as it did every year he'd come to this party before.

But with a small, piercing shudder, Peter realizes there's no excitement left in trying to fill in the blanks of who or what could be out there with his imagination; that spending any time wondering at the possibilities becomes the definition of pointless when one has already seen enough to last lifetimes. 

Distantly, he senses rather than sees Michelle move closer, letting her body settle against him. 

“You’re shivering,” is all she says. 

Peter’s baffled “oh,” is drowned out by the thumping music and various other noise from the partying below them. So instead he nods, his focus drifting from the night sky, to Michelle's down-turned face, to the gentle movement of her hand as it slips into his.

The comfort in her touch makes no sense. Neither does the odd impulse to sink his face in her hair, in the same curls partially obscuring the elegant planes of her profile and tickling at his own forehead. He could easily thread one of the wavy curls around his finger to find out if it was as soft as her skin seemed to be, if just the thought of doing a thing to ruin the unexpected peace of this moment wasn’t causing his heart to beat in quadruple time. 

They sit in silence for what feels like hours and it’s exactly what Peter wants.

Maybe _almost_ exactly. He must have whispered her name out loud at some point, because suddenly Michelle is squeezing his hand. 

“What? I’m right here, loser.” 

“Yes. Right."

Peter hesitates, weighing whether he should risk pushing forward when it would be so much easier not to. "It’s just, there’s something I’ve been thinking about since my last, uh, that last internship trip," he stammers. "It's something I wanted to say when you came by that morning, with my homework. I just...wanted to know...”

 _The voicemails, MJ,_ is what he wants to get out. He wants to talk about the ones she sent him before he left, and while he was gone.

Peter wants to apologize for every time he never bothered calling her back. He wants to tell her how he'd listened to all of her messages, but wasn't sure if she'd care to hear the excuses of why he'd bailed on a practice, or slipped out halfway through band or hadn't shown up at all for a Chem II exam.

More than anything, he wants to tell her how he'd listened to every single one she'd left for him, some of them several times, after he jumped off the school bus. How the odd certainty in her voice that he was _definitely_ coming back had somehow become key to helping him smother away the dark thought that maybe he wasn't meant to survive, when so many others braver and better than him, like Tony, had not. 

The nervousness pulsing through Peter eases once he notices Michelle has turned her face towards his again, with nothing but a quiet acceptance there.

Something about that, coupled with the warmth of her body and the lingering interest in her steady gaze, feels good. It makes him feel less disoriented, almost relieved, like it wasn’t just him that was getting lost in the absurdity of whatever was happening between them. It doesn’t take long for Peter to completely let go of his initial plan, allowing his baser instincts to guide him instead of logic, or doubt.

He gently slides his hand into Michelle's hair and presses his forehead to hers, before trailing a slow, curious thumb over the freckles dusting her cheekbone. Her eyes flutter shut. "Peter..."

He breathes in her sigh, kissing her once, then leans forward to kiss her again.


	3. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm slowly responding to reviews (sorry for the delay, my job is demanding af) and can't say enough how great and encouraging hearing your thoughts are.

  


Michelle lowers the book in her hands, eyes drifting towards her phone. It's perched right there on the edge of the tub and well within her reach - nothing is stopping her from texting him. But given what time it is, and how Peter's own late night messages have stopped ever since she ditched him on the track a few days ago, she's not sure reaching out is the best idea. There's decathlon drills to prep for, an upcoming debate with Staten Island Tech, a group physics paper due in a week, and an entire apartment in dire need of a deep clean. It's a lot, even by her standards. Her body deciding this was the perfect time to revolt is the only justification Michelle has for soaking in a bath this long. 

The ibuprofen had been useless. Her neighbor's old heating pad - a truly ancient thing, faded pink fabric fraying at the edges and a fire hazard Miss Kirkpatrick's chain-smoking self really can't afford - hadn’t worked any better. A hot bubble bath was the natural next step. Michelle had slid into the fragrant, scalding water, hoping the heat would soothe her relentless cramping, with no luck. 

“Fuck my life.” 

Michelle scowls at the sudsy water as it circles down the drain, before toweling off and changing into a worn tank top and pajama shorts. She flips the light off on her way back to her room, and is nearly done freeing her hair from its high bun when she hears the chime of a notification from the phone in her hand. 

_Hey_

With a small smile, Michelle folds a leg beneath her body as she sits on the edge of her bed. 

_how was your patrol, loser_

_Good! Heading home._

Michelle can't stop the immediate rush of relief at hearing that he's okay, but resents how quickly she considers inviting him over so she could confirm this with her own eyes. Peter isn't hers to take care of; he belongs to no one except himself. She rapidly taps the backspace button on her screen until every trace of the three heart emojis she had typed are deleted.

_now you have no excuse not to finish your part of the group paper_

_We can finish now if you want :)_

Michelle flushes as she lies back on her comforter, thumb hovering over the glass screen in contemplation of what to reply. 

Things always start this way. Usually Peter initiated but Michelle couldn’t deny she was guilty sometimes, too. It would begin with an invitation that could be brushed off as no big deal if the other person declined (an outcome which incidentally, hasn’t happened yet). An offer to study, or proofread each other’s essays, or binge some TV show at such an absurd hour of the night that the pretense of an innocent hang out became a joke. Michelle has given up wondering how she let herself go this far off the deep end with Peter fucking Parker, of all people. The last thing she wants to do, however, is get his hopes up for something she'd have no interest in doing with anyone right now. 

_tonight’s no good. the crimson tide is upon me, and i'm dying._

_What?_

_i’m on my period dork_

_oh...OH_

_sweet dreams, parker._

Michelle tosses the phone on her pillow, and grabs the lukewarm mug of hibiscus tea off her desktop on the way out of her bedroom. By the time she returns from the kitchen, tea pleasantly hot again in her palms, she’s expecting to see at least a generic goodnight from Peter and curses herself for being disappointed when there isn't one. Then another line of text appears on the screen. 

_1) Look up 2) Unlock your window_

“Hey, creeper. How long have you been on my fire escape?”

“I just got here.” 

After he pulls off the mask, his hair a fluffy, curly mess and smelling freshly-shampooed as he ducks into her room, Michelle sees that Peter’s smile is too natural for that to be a lie. He really must have already been on his way when he'd sent that first text. His eyes flicker down her body for the barest instant - it’s quick, but his gaze burns and Michelle’s nerves feel rubbed raw for too many reasons to name.

“Still working on that paper?” he asks, pointing to the laptop on her bed. 

“No. Come help me procrastinate, loser.” 

Michelle flops down on her comforter, tugging a pillow underneath her cheek as she boots up Netflix. Within a minute Peter has lost the spandex and pulled on a borrowed t-shirt. He lays behind her in just that and a pair of boxers, nuzzling his face into her hair while telling her what happened on his patrol. 

Some nights, Peter slings himself through Michelle's window and can’t stop moving or talking. He’ll recount in detail the thwarted robberies, illegal chop shops he successfully busted, and the little tokens of appreciation people would force him to take after he helped them (last week, he told her his favorites are a pair of charm bracelets he got from twin girls, after rescuing their puppy from a storm drain). On those occasions, Michelle could hardly get a word in and that was fine by her. She has no intention of telling Peter, or anyone, but she likes observing up close how excited and... _alive_ he was, when being Spiderman made him happy.

Other nights, Peter is quiet. He’d peel off his suit, pin Michelle onto the bed then have her moaning his name faster than she could blink, or collapse on her carpet while doing his loser best to bleed out from some terrible, gaping wound. Silence from Peter, who loved running his mouth more than anyone Michelle has ever met, is something she's still learning to get used to.

The most troubling display of this phenomenon yet was the time he'd sobbed in her arms for hours, with only the muffled sound of "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh _fuck_ , I'm sorry, Ben," to let her know he hadn't entirely lost his ability to speak. 

In any case, every night they spent together always ended the same.

Peter's chatter dies down once he's fully engrossed in the movie, and one of his legs absently slip between both of hers. His chest is still flush to her back, with one arm securely around her middle and the other supporting her head. Neither of them seems to breathe as his restless fingers tug and twist the hem of her tank top, until Peter exhales, and slips his hand beneath it to rub slow circles on her bare stomach. 

"Is...this okay?" he whispers, and Michelle nods.

So far, sex with Peter has been varying combinations of awkward, sweet, hot, and intensely addictive. It suddenly dawns on Michelle that cuddling with him may not be all that different. She’d spent weeks becoming intimately acquainted with his body and his study of hers has been no less thorough. She's fully aware of his ability to melt her with a simple touch, and in general was okay with it - when there was a point. An obvious end goal in sight, which was helping each other get off.

 _Maybe this could be okay too,_ Michelle reasons. It doesn't have to be a big deal. It's not like his nose accidentally brushing against the nape of her neck is sending shivers down her spine. His dumb, quiet laughter in her hair as the movie continues isn’t cute in the slightest, and definitely doesn’t bring a silent smile to her own face.

Peter rubs at her lower belly for five minutes, then ten, a full hour before the motions gradually slow to a stop, because he’s fallen asleep. 

Michelle shuts the lid on her laptop. Peter has encased her in his warmth, his form molded to and cradling hers so perfectly she's having trouble sensing where he ends, and she begins. Her cramps have all but vanished at this point, having been replaced by that same intoxicating, full-body buzz she felt the first time Peter made her cum. She was hoping that had been a hormonal fluke, a biological side effect of her relative inexperience. Realizing how wrong she was brings on a mild form of panic.

“Peter.”

Feeling oddly exposed, Michelle lets out an annoyed whimper as she tries and fails to extract herself from his ridiculously strong embrace. She says Peter's name a second time, then a third when he still doesn't answer, and his hold on her only loosens once he finally responds. “You're still awake?” his voice is muffled against her neck, thick with exhaustion. 

“What's wrong, MJ?”

Michelle turns in his arms to look at his face. He’s clearly still half-asleep, his blinking heavy and slow, but with each passing second he’s a bit more alert. In just a minute or two, she would have Peter's full attention. He’d be able to hear, process and understand every part of anything she had to say to him, with no distractions. He's here because he wants to be, because they are friends. Shouldn't friends be able to talk about the hard stuff?

 _I'm pretty sure my mom's about to relapse again_ , is one way she could begin. 

_I'm sorry you've lost so many people. I miss my dad every day, too._

_You said you were heading home, but instead you came here._

_What the hell are we doing?_

Just as she finds the nerve to speak, fingers curling around his bicep, Peter's lips are on hers.

Unlike most other kisses from him, there's no underlying intent behind this one to get her going - but the calculation remains, and instead she suspects he's trying to keep her quiet. His lips are soft, pliant and indulgent as they move with hers, and it's easy for Michelle to let him delve his tongue into her mouth to deepen the kiss. Without conscious thought, she slides her hands up his shoulders to pull him flush against her, dragging a low moan from Peter that turns into quiet, contagious laughter the second her heart starts frantically thumping between them, swift as a hummingbird's.

"Still dying?"

Michelle shoves Peter off of her, refusing to answer him or dwell on his stupid, self-satisfied grin.

"Shut up and go back to sleep, loser."


	4. Normal (Pt. 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This (long) update was made possible by Hozier's new album + everyone who has supported this fic. Please continue to review - your comments let me know what you think of how the story is progressing and motivate me to keep writing <3

 

 

“You okay, Parker?”

Peter nestles his face against Michelle’s neck, sucking slow kisses there as her fingers run through his sweaty curls. He wants to answer her in the affirmative. He wants to say something funny or light-hearted that might make her laugh like she did earlier and bring some levity back to all of this, but the problem is that would be a lie. There is nothing light-hearted about what he’s feeling. If Peter is fully honest with himself, it's treading a bit too close to what he'd felt in the seconds before his body burned to ash.

Maybe his brain had constructed a defense around any concrete memory of death, or maybe May was right; that whatever Carol, Stephen and the other Avengers did re-wrote the ripple effects of Thanos' crimes completely. Whatever the truth was, the pull to connect with people who knew _him_ \- who knew Peter Benjamin Parker was a real person, that he’d been born and lived, and that he still existed - had flooded him the moment he'd woken, mind and body intact, after it was all over.

Until tonight, when Michelle silently led him off the balcony and into this bedroom, the only thing stronger than that pull had been his fear.

Someone downstairs has kicked Flash off his own megaphone and fixed the sound system to an album with no lyrics; just pure instrumentals with a bassline that thrums deep in Peter’s bones, and he wonders without asking if Michelle could feel it, too. He’s still half-hard and throbbing inside of her, riding on a pleasure overload that’s bordering on painful. 

Her long legs are lax around his hips, no longer gripping him in a vice, but her inner thighs are freakishly soft and her nails scratching at his scalp feel just as incredible and ever since he ("they" would require a level of wishful thinking Peter won't delude himself with) came, his world has winnowed down to the in-and-out of her breath, and the thump of her heart against his own. Every part of him knows his silence has stretched on more than long enough.

“I’m okay. Very okay. This is so great.”

Peter lifts his head to brush the damp, wispy hairs from her face, obsessively searching for any small sign that maybe she’s not completely okay, either. 

“What about you, MJ?”

“If I say no, will you volunteer to fix the mess we made of this poor, defenseless bed?”

A sleepy smirk grows on Michelle’s lips, and Peter is finally able to relax. She meets him halfway for a long, greedy kiss that he breaks only to press his lips to her bare shoulder, then the swell of her left breast. She doesn't argue when he steadily drags the top of her dress down further to expose more of her skin.

"I'll take care of the bed, in a minute," he promises, flicking his tongue over her dusky nipple. He lets himself get distracted there when Michelle's soft whimpers elongate into moans, squirming beneath him as he sucks the hardened bud into his mouth. 

“A minute, sure,” he faintly hears her huff. “Tell that to your boner.”

“MJ!”

"I'm just saying you look wrecked, loser. I did that to you."

Turning what he knows must be an embarrassingly deep shade of red is well worth the unguarded affection in her smile, but it's also a look that unsettles Peter for reasons he can't fully grasp. The moment doesn’t last long, though, as his hand absently smooths down her left shoulder blade and spreads over two raised patches of skin near the top of her rib cage.

The distinct surgical scars instantly remind him of one of his earliest - and worst - injuries during patrol. A collapsed lung from a brutal beating with a lead pipe, repaired in the upstate facility while Peter was awake and just a few feet away from the haunted gazes of Tony and May behind a glass partition. The odd constellation of post-op marks down his right side had faded within hours, but he’d never forget the way they looked, or the feeling of not being able to breathe.

The lust drains from Peter almost as quickly as Michelle's body goes rigid under his. 

“What happened, MJ?” he gently asks, thumb still grazing the edges of her smaller scar.

“Nothing. It was a long time ago, when I was a kid.” 

Michelle takes a deep breath and disentangles herself from him, both cringing when he fully slips out of her in the process.

Once Peter pulls his pants and boxers back up from around his ankles, and Michelle maneuvers her bunched-up dress back down, they lie still for a few minutes, silently sharing a pillow. He turns his head towards hers just as she dips a finger between her bare legs, watching as the curiosity on her face turns into a dubious squint.

“That’s...a lot more than I thought it would be.” 

Peter furiously blushes, immediately getting her meaning. “Oh god. I’m sorry.” 

He starts moving off the bed, already surveying the room to find her a towel or tissues, or something similar. “I’m so sorry. I just figured since you...well, maybe I should have, uh, pulled out anyway since we didn’t have a condom, you know, or- ”

“I said you could do it.”

 _I’m on the pill,_ had been her exact segueway, once they had kept moving past what would've been any sensible stopping point for a basic make-out session, and it became clear neither of them wanted to stop at all.

Michelle crawls over to sit beside him on the edge of the bed, bumping his shoulder in a friendly manner. 

“Life is a marathon, Peter. Save your sorrows for when you actually do something wrong."

Her weight lifts from the mattress, and Peter hears the sound of running water after Michelle closes the bathroom door behind her. 

His fingers flex in the sheets, their obvious state giving him pause to consider whether it would be more offensive to Flash's parents (or whoever was responsible for cleaning this house) to try and re-make the bed, or strip it entirely before they left the room. Peter tosses all of the decorative pillows back in place, and makes sure to pluck his wallet and her bra from the rumpled sheets, before gathering them up. Michelle opens the door and picks up on his train of thought and eventual choice, with an approving nod.

“You can bring them in here."

Peter carries the bundle into the spacious, gray-tiled bathroom to see an empty wire basket beneath the counter tops, and crouches down so he can stuff them all in. He senses Michelle watching him as she leans in the doorway, but turns to see that she's already averted her gaze to the floor.

“So. That was fun,” she says, pushing a mass of curls behind her ear, and his eyes drift down to her swollen lips. 

"Fun" was not the first description Peter would’ve picked but she wasn’t exactly wrong, either. Less than half an hour ago, those same lips had panted obscenities against his own mouth, had swallowed his moans and rained kisses all over his inflamed skin as they learned what felt good, and found ways to make it even better.

But aside from her quiet curses she hadn’t said anything at all while they fucked, and in this moment, she's looking and sounding suspiciously close to announcing her intent to leave. Peter runs a hand through his own unruly hair, as he stands to full height. 

“Hey. If I was too rough at any point, if...if I hurt you. I’m sorry. If I’d known...”

“Known what? Wounds do heal, you know.”

Michelle crosses her arms as she stares back at him. "You of all people should relate,” she quietly adds.

Peter's jaw clenches, his blood running cold. _What was that supposed to mean?_

"Look, Michelle. I don't think - "

“You didn’t hurt me. I bet you’ve never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. Have you?"

Peter ignores his own panic, and looks past her bored tone and defensive body language to see that underneath it, she's more anxious than he is right now. The only part of Michelle that's not closed off are her eyes; they're sharp as ever, but it feels like she’s searching him for something she wants but has no intention to ask for, if she actually managed to find it. His head starts to pound, torn between the equal urge to reach for her hand, and get as far away from her as possible.

Something deep in his gut prods him to just answer Michelle's question(s), accept whatever her response might be, then convince her to stay. If she stayed with him, they could share an Uber ride back to Queens and talk, or preferably not talk about anything at all and just...hold each other until they both fell asleep.

Together, safe and warm in his bed, for the rest of the night. 

 

 

“Wait - you really left her there at the party?”

“Yes.”

“And this was after you guys did... _it_ and she said... _that_?”

“Yes.”

“And then you just left her!?”

Peter heaves a sigh, head dropping into his hands. 

For the fourth time since he arrived at Ned's, the other teenager dramatically falls from his desk chair, and topples down on the bedroom floor. Peter can’t be mad - not only does he deserve this, he really did ask for it. No one forced him to re-direct the topic from the souvenirs Ned had brought back from Florida, to the sanitized, cliff-notes version of what happened between him and Michelle a few nights ago. But he was going crazy. He had to talk to someone about the insanity of it all.

“Dude. _Dude_ ,” Ned mumbles, mouth full of hypoallergenic rug. 

“I know.” 

“You really are a dumbass, Peter.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So does this mean you and MJ are gonna be a thing now, or what?”

“Yeah...that's doubtful."

Peter springs up from his bean bag chair, pacing an agitated circuit around Ned's prone body as he continues, "I mean, what if she's not interested in me like that? Is she even allowed to date? If I wanted to be her boyfriend, shouldn’t I know what her favorite color is first, or what her family is like or the kinds of music she has on her study playlist?” _I want to know everything about her,_ he nearly confesses, stopping himself just before the words spill from his mouth. 

He freezes at the sight of Ned's open book bag hanging on the closet door, eyes going wide. 

“Monday is the first day back to school.”

“Yeah, so?” Ned gets up and walks past him to the other side of his room.

“So? How am I supposed to act like a regular person around MJ when I see her again in only two days!?” 

"About that time frame, my dude..."

Ned steeples his fingers, elbows resting on top of the huge rubber tote he's now sitting beside. “I texted her a couple minutes after I got off the phone with you this morning, and yeah...she'd asked me to bring her back one of my nana's pineapple upside-down cakes, and cake is kind of perishable, so...” 

Peter starts shaking his head the second Ned's words sink in.

“No. No way you invited her to come over today. No, no, no!”

“Yes,” Ned confirms with a nod, “she’ll be here in an hour or two.”

“Since when do you guys hang out, anyway?”

“Look man, what do you want me to say? MJ is weird but unlike us, she’s also cool,” he explains with a shrug as Peter joins him on the floor. Ned moves the lid of the tote to the side to access its contents, rummaging through the top layer of Legos to fish out the ones they needed.

“She has this private Instagram with like, 30,000 followers! We hung out with her plenty of times over the summer. Well...more like me and Betty hung out with her at her job when she could get us some free guest passes. You know, at Coney Island? Luna Park?” 

_MJ’s on Instagram?_

_MJ and Ned are friends? She had a summer job?_

"MJ likes pineapple? There's at least one gross thing about her, I guess," Peter says with a weak laugh.

Ned doesn’t respond, or press the subject of his general ignorance about the girl he'd just lost his virginity to.

It's not like he was completely clueless - Peter had _always_ admired how smart Michelle was. It was common knowledge around their school she didn’t care for math but aced every calculus quiz regardless. She never tripped over her conjugations during oral presentations in Spanish and without fail had ranked in the top 5% of their class every quarter, since Freshman year. She was also funny in a ruthless way that only became more intriguing once Peter thought about her little smirks after she roasted someone - he thinks they might be tiny tells revealing there was no real heat behind her barbs, and her true ire towards their peers was lying dormant, or else didn't exist at all.

They work for a while on building up the base of King’s Landing and making corrections to Ned’s hand-drawn schematic as they go, but the hollow feeling in Peter’s stomach won’t go away no matter how much progress they make. Ned must glean something from his silence that makes him feel guilty. He trots away with a sigh towards his window sill, where he’d laid his cell phone. He taps at his screen for several seconds then returns with it in hand. 

“Tell you what. I’ll text her right now to pick up her cake _after_ you leave, on two conditions.”

Given the alternative, Peter would agree to anything at this point.

“I’m game.”

“One: you can’t skip any more meetings with that Stranger dude,” Ned orders. 

“You mean, Mr Strange?”

“His office is sweet. That glow in the dark fishtank in the lobby? The 85” ultra-high def flatscreen? Bomb. Plus, you always seem better after you talk to him,” Ned adds, his playful demeanor becoming more serious at his last point. There’s no use in Peter asking why he's worried at his emotional state; Ned Leeds knew him better than anyone. 

“What else?” Peter warily asks.

“Based on what you said, MJ’s at least suspected you were Spiderman for a while. Tell me why you didn’t trust her enough to confirm it.”

Peter lies back on the rug, blinking up at the ceiling fan above them. He tinkers with the Lego cylinders in his hands for a second before letting them drop to his chest. “It’s not that I didn't trust her. It's just that so much was happening between us in such a short time and most of it was amazing. _She_ is amazing,” he emphasizes, unable to keep the smile from his voice or his face, already lost in his thoughts. 

"It was a selfish, total dick move to walk away from her like that. I know there's no excuse for it, but...come on, Ned. How would _you_ explain the idea of arachnid DNA, and climbing walls and swinging from webs without looking like a freak? Maybe I didn't want her to see me different. Maybe I was scared she'd stop looking at me as just normal, Peter Parker. Okay?”

_“That’s a lot to digest, loser. But I’ll try.”_

Peter goes lightheaded when he realizes the statement hadn’t come from the only other person in the room, but the feminine, disembodied voice from the phone on the floor. 

“Ned. Please tell me you didn’t put her on speaker?” 

“I did. You can thank me later, dude.”

 

 

Peter finds Michelle in the reference section on their third day back to school. She's deep in the old encyclopedia archives where no one with access to a working internet connection ever bothered to browse. He’d walked up and down most of the private kiosks in the front of the library, thinking she might want somewhere comfortable to read whatever her book of the moment might be, but instead she’s wedged between two dusty aisles all the way back here. He shifts his book bag off his shoulders and into his lap as he sits beside her, pulling at a loose thread on his sleeve as he waits. For what, he’s not sure; for whom, he’s certain.

“So, that’s new,” Michelle eventually says, not looking up from the open “A” volume in her arms. 

“What's new?”

“The "stare at Michelle Jones 24/7 challenge" you've been up to all week, nerd. Why?”

That’s not remotely what Peter thought she wanted to talk about, but the last thing he's going to do is complain. 

This topic is infinitely better than the one he’d assumed she had in mind when she'd thrown a balled up note at his head in study hall, asking him to meet her here during their lunch period. Peter had been positive she planned to hand over a bulleted and possibly annotated list of reasons she regretted what happened a week ago. She had every right to, especially considering his continued avoidance of her even after the phone call at Ned's. But apparently, he was wrong.

Relief flows through him as Michelle's gaze flickers up to meet his, waiting for his answer.

“Wow. Sorry about that,” he mumbles, fidgeting with the zipper of his book bag. “I didn't realize how much I was...I haven't really been sleeping so my judgment isn't the best lately, is what I'm saying. It won’t happen again, MJ. I swear. I'd never purposely make you feel uncomfortable, or -” 

“The apologizing, is it automatic? Like a reflex you have no control over?”

“I don’t know. Yeah, it might be,” Peter admits, and it’s the most honest thing he can remember saying to someone in his life.

Michelle's eyes visibly soften.

“If you're regretting what we did, Peter, it’s okay. We can forget it ever happened."

“I couldn't regret it or forget it even if I wanted to.”

Peter was wrong; _this_ is the most honest thing he’s ever said to anyone.

With more courage than he thought he possessed, Peter tosses the bag from his lap in exchange for coaxing Michelle's willowy body onto his. He pushes her curly bangs behind her ear, wanting to see more of her face. This close, he can see her cheeks are going pink beneath the golden brown, and her pupils are dilated. The effect becomes solidly overwhelming as soon as she winds her arms around his neck, and presses her lips to his wayward eyebrow. 

"Me neither," she whispers, and Peter can't stop smiling.

He rests a hand on the curve of Michelle's waist, while the other slips beneath her baggy sweater to splay on the warm skin of her lower back. She doesn’t seem to mind when Peter starts kissing down her temple, cheek, and newly-arrived dimples, unable to help himself once he's begun - with every touch her legs tighten around him, and her ankles lock him in place when he's pulled her in as close as possible.

Michelle closes her eyes, nudging his nose with hers. “Loser,” she murmurs against his mouth.

"I never said I didn't want you staring at me. I asked _why_."

Nothing about this was adding up to him, either - how he’d managed to make it this far in their years-long acquaintance without truly seeing her.

Maybe Michelle had always been nice to look at in an objective sense but Peter is coming to terms with the idea - outside the biased haze of a post-coital context, that is - that she is achingly beautiful, and had easily surpassed Thor to become the most finely-crafted person he’s ever met. 

Peter brushes his thumb against Michelle's delicate collarbone and follows the motion with his eyes, allowing himself to savor how good she smells and the way her body fits around his, grounding him to this place. He lets himself experience the uninhibited capacity of his senses for a brief moment, and it seems to give him the words he's looking for.

“I've got this hyper-awareness thing. Every noise, big or small, any sudden movement around me. A change in the temperature down to the degree. Anything at all, I guess,” he begins.

“Most of the time, it’s manageable. It was the _worst_ right after it first happened.”

“After what first happened?” 

He tells Michelle the story of the radioactive spider with no blanks. It’s the first time Peter has told anyone the entire, bizarre tale, and her eyes never leave his face. Not when he talks about wondering if the ordeal had been a series of vivid fever dreams, or when he explains what it was like to discover every inhumanly enhanced sense he’d gained after. Not even when he tells her about puking up his lunch when their cafeteria's fire alarm went off during a drill, at the beginning of Freshman year.

“I remember that day. I really thought it was just the meatloaf,” Michelle hums.

She absently strokes her knuckles down his jaw, letting her grip catch on the collar of his flannel shirt. One finger lazily skims down the front of his shirt and dips inside the space between two buttons so she can circle all around the bare skin of his navel. It’s subtle, but Peter can tell by the way her smirk comes back that she _knows_ her touch is the cause of the tremors in his muscles, the energy rippling through his nerve endings with every pass of her nail on his flesh.

He shudders, closing his eyes so Michelle hopefully won’t notice them rolling back in his skull as she simultaneously rolls her hips down against him, and blows a cool stream of air in his ear. When he opens them, he can practically see the wheels turn in her head, imagining her piecing together the deeper implications of what he’s only giving her a surface understanding of. 

“You have to filter everything, or else you’d go insane,” she concludes. 

Peter exhales, as his arms tighten around her.

“Yes.”

“That spider bite really fucked you up, Parker.”

“No.”

Swallowing hard, Peter shakes his head. He smooths both of his hands up and down her lower back, in a calming way he realizes may be more for his own comfort than Michelle’s.

“No. That's not what fucked me up,” he mutters again. If the truth of the matter wasn't something that could risk a nervous breakdown in her arms, Peter might have explained how the practice he'd honed in filtering stimuli those first few months after the bite had spared his sanity the night of Ben's murder; an event he'd witnessed in full, unyielding technicolor. 

A flicker of something - not pity or even confusion, to Peter's surprise - crosses Michelle’s expression, at his silence. Whatever thoughts brought that look on seem to settle over her like a physical weight, and she drops both of her formerly wandering hands away from him without a word.

“Anyway, I'm still learning how to filter you. It's different with you, MJ,” he quietly finishes. 

He sees the unspoken question in her eyes, and it's one he's asked himself, too.

Before, this level of scrutiny, from her of all people, would’ve set Peter on the highest alert. Nothing about Michelle was straightforward and that had made her the type of person he both consciously, and subconsciously avoided. He wonders whether there was a small part of him which always knew that if anyone were to figure out his secret it would be her, always watching and analyzing in the background while never saying a word unless she felt compelled to. Which she usually did not. 

Now that Peter is getting to know her, it really _is_ different.

Within the span of a week, Michelle’s attention has stopped being an obstacle for him to dodge or shrink back from. Her focus on him feels safe, and good, and intensely right - like a measurable force, a newly discovered law of nature keeping him from splintering apart to join those millions of other Peter Parkers who hadn't been lucky enough to receive a second chance at life. He idly wonders if this is what Fibonacci felt like when he discovered the golden ratio; but instead of articulating his feelings in the nerdiest, most convoluted way a person ever could, Peter just holds her hand. 

“There’s so many nice things to notice about you. It's easy to get lost in trying to notice them all at once.”

Michelle doesn't let go of his hand, but she does lean back from him while covering her face with her free one.

“I have to be honest, Peter. Everything about you, and this past week, and this conversation in particular, is giving me whiplash," she murmurs, almost shyly. "I really might hurl all over my favorite place in this entire school, and it will be all your fault."

“May works third shift Wednesdays. Come over tonight, I’ll make you feel better.”

He doesn't know whether it was courage or pure foolishness but Peter had said the first thing that came to mind.

For a second he wishes he could take the impulsive words back as Michelle drops her hand from her face - of all the unimpressed glares Michelle has sent him over the years this one must top them all - but right before he decides to rescind his sloppy offer she throws her head back, and starts shaking with laughter in his lap.

“Corny as fuck! What an idiot."

“Come on, I think that was pretty smooth,” Peter starts to protest with a small grin, but Michelle just shuts him up in a different way. Her mouth is lush and inviting, and it takes no time for their cautious, shy kissing to tip over from sweetness into something more. This turn is feeling...familiar.

Michelle must agree, because she pulls back from him mirroring the same intent in her eyes that's coursing through his veins. 

"You really want me to come over later?"

Peter vigorously nods. "But only if you want to," he qualifies.

"I'll think about it. For now, I vote we go to the microfiche lab."

“Our library has one of those?”

This Michelle - the one whose heartbeat audibly sped when Peter undressed her in the dark, deserted lab, who soaked his fingers the second he slid them inside her heat, and chanted his name like a plea and a prayer once he was making her feel exactly the way he wanted her to - this is the one he's beginning to understand.

As she comes down from her high a few minutes later, murmuring more praise into his ear as she shoves his jeans down his hips, Peter glides a hand up her shoulder blade until the damp silk of her skin gives way to the scars he’d felt the first night they were together. This is how he knows this moment, and Michelle herself, is real. It reminds him that he's real, too - that he had been born, and was still alive.

That the endless, enduring imperfections of this world still existed, and so did he.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work in the MCU fandom...hello.
> 
> Reviews/feedback lets me know your thoughts, questions + greatly motivate me to keep writing :)


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